We’re a group of entrepreneurs in the Seattle area who give and seek advice on running technology startups. We meet about once or twice a month.

This is targeted at founders of, employees of, or those folks interested in joining local technology companies. Be ready to talk shop, get into technical arcana, and discuss the nitty-gritties of running/working at/launching a tech startup.

Subscribe to the email list for announcements and discussion, and to make job postings. (Moderated; list membership hidden)

The topic is Data Visualization and we now have TWO great speakers:

• Noah Iliinsky, author of the recently published Beautiful Visualization by O’Reilly Media will describe what makes a successful visual and the process to get there.
• Jock Mackinlay, Director of Visual Analysis at Tableau Software, will talk about storytelling on the web using interactive visualizations. As part of his talk he will also demo Tableau Public, the free Tableau product.
• Bonus: Ada’s Technical Books (a geek labor of love!), will be raffling away a copy of Noah’s book.

If you’re interested in creating meaningful visuals to analyze, summarize, and communicate complex patterns in data, then you should attend. There are lots of great projects this talk can help with: create better visualizations of your startup’s metrics, build interesting mashups of publicly available data, or publish a twist on data that your startup collects to drive traffic to your blog.

This talk teaches a practical process for designing successful informative visuals. It begins by discussing the importance of understanding your audience’s needs, and perception and cognition factors that enhance the effectiveness of your visual. This knowledge is then used to inform a step-by step design process, which takes you from a blank page to a complete, successful visual. The process specifically addresses choosing what information to include, where to put it on the page, what it should look like, how it should be labeled, what the links and axes look like, etc.

In recent years, interactive graphical visualization has begun to evolve from an analysis tool used within corporations and research labs to a medium for storytelling on the public web. Our vision is that people should be able to share interactive visualizations on the web as easily as they now share images and video. Over the last year we have been exploring this vision with Tableau Public, a free service that lets journalists, bloggers, students, hobbyists, government employees, and concerned citizens publish interactive visualizations to the public web and embed them in blogs and articles.

Noah Iliinsky has spent the last several years thinking about effective approaches to creating diagrams and other types of information visualization. He also works in interface and interaction design, all from a functional and user-centered perspective. Before becoming a designer he was a programmer for several years. He has a master’s in Technical Communication from the University of Washington, and a bachelor’s in Physics from Reed College, and is a contributor to and the technical editor of, the newly released book Beautiful Visualization, from O’Reilly Media.

Jock Mackinlay received his PhD in computer science from Stanford University, where he pioneered the automatic design of graphical presentations of relational information. He joined Xerox PARC in 1986, where he collaborated with the User Interface Research Group to develop many novel applications of computer graphics for information access, coining the term “Information Visualization”. Much of the fruits of this research can be seen in his recently published book, Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (Morgan Kauffman, written and edited with Stuart K. Card and Ben Shneiderman).

Logistics:

• When: 6:45-9pm
• Where: The Douglas Forum at the Executive Education Center, University of Washington (see below).
• Cost: Free; no registration

Future Meeting Dates:

• July 15, 2010 (Thursday): Topic TBD
• August 11, 2010 (Wednesday): Topic TBD
• September 15, 2010 (Wednesday): Topic TBD

Interested in speaking at an upcoming event?

• Please email chuck.groom [gmail.com] and goberoi [gmail.com] with: the topic of your talk, 2-3 sentences describing the talk, and 2-3 sentences of your biography.
• Please see the speaking guidelines

FAQ

• Who comes? Usually 40-70 people show up; see the list of who comes.
• How often? Meetings are once a month
• How long? 2 hours, followed by conversation over beers at a nearby pub.
• Who may come? Open to founders and employees of technology startups, or anyone interested in becoming involved with tech startups.
• What is the agenda? The first hour includes one or two pre-arranged presentations, followed by an hour of less structured conversation. (Brainstormed list of discussion topics)

STS meetings happen at the Douglas Forum at the Executive Education Center, University of Washington.

From NE 45th St. headed east, turn right onto Memorial Way. Take your first left on Stephens Way. The Executive Education Center is on your right hand side as you proceed. After a block the road starts to curve... and that’s where you’ll find the Executive Education Center.

From within the Center, head to the fourth floor, and enter the Douglas Forum Conference Room.

• Directions From The east
• Directions from downtown/south
• From the north
• See campus map below. Look for the red circle.

Parking

• Being eco-minded types, we recommend public transit if at all possible. UW is a good bus hub.
• On campus parking is $5.00. This is probably easiest and cheapest. Best lots to park at are N1, N4, and N5.
• Street lots are available off of 15th Ave NE, but costs vary unknown.
• You can find street parking in the evenings for free, but it can be limited. Your best bet is to park near NE 45th St. and 15th Ave NE.

More recent meeting have been recorded, and posted online. See videos of STS meetings

• May, 2010
• Apr, 2010
• Mar, 2010
• Feb, 2010
• Jan, 2010
• Nov, 2009
• Oct, 2009
• Sept, 2009
• Aug, 2009
• July, 2009
• June, 2009
• May, 2009
• April, 2009
• Mar, 2009
• Feb, 2009
• Jan, 2009
• Dec, 2008
• Nov, 2008
• Oct, 2008
• Sept, 2008
• August, 2008
• July, 2008
• June, 2008
• May, 2008
• Apr, 2008
• Mar, 2008
• Jan, 2008
• Oct, 2007
• Nov 7, 2006
• Oct 3, 2006
• Sept 7, 2006
• Aug 1, 2006
• July 11, 2006
• June 22, 2006

We want people to continue discussing and sharing information outside the meeting times! Please read over and contribute to the public forums.

Click here for a list of other similar organizations and events.

This site is structured as a wiki so everyone can contribute. It’s all publically editable, except for this first page.

Chuck Groom and Gaurav Oberoi, founders of Precision Polling